Generally, a nose landing gear of an aircraft includes a leg mounted in a casing, a rocker beam connected to one end of the leg through a swivel pin and supporting rolling means such as one or two wheels, a shock absorber of the type with a cylinder and a rod fixed on one side to the bottom of the leg or of the casing via a cardan joint and on the other side to the rocker beam.
It is in fact known that, firstly, when the aircraft is on the ground, it can move by rolling on the runway. In this case, the shock absorber must perform its function when it comes over rough spots on the runway for example. In addition, it is of course necessary for the aircraft to also be able to steer to go from one place to another. For this purpose, the leg is connected to a means allowing it to be turned so as to give the wheels the desired positioning. Taking into account all these parameters, it is noted that the cardan joint allows a rotation in a plane around a point of the shock absorber when it is compressed but also a rotation of this plane when the wheels undergo different orientations to steer the aircraft. These conditions are known and will not be described in further detail.
One thus also sees the utility of the cardan joint, which allows this rotation of the shock absorber around a point and within a solid angle having a value of a few degrees.
The cardan joints used in landing gears have been fully satisfactory from the viewpoint of reliability, but they exhibit at least one drawback. In fact, as they are placed at the back of the leg at one end of the shock absorber, access to them is very difficult, thus entailing relatively high maintenance costs. It is therefore an object of the present invention to overcome these drawbacks by providing a nose landing gear with a rocker beam subjected to the action of a shock absorber, of simple design and construction allowing very easy maintenance.